know your numbers


know your numbers.

I’m often surprised.

By how quickly things can be dismissed.

Growing a venture takes time.

Growing a business takes time.

Growing a side-hustle takes time.

People miss this.

A certain amount needs to happen against time.

Numbers + time = desired result.

The numbers are what people miss.

A founder has launched a new offer.

It’s brave.

It’s putting themselves out there.

80 people have been to the page.

30 have clicked through to the buy now button.

No sales.

Does this mean it’s a failure?

No - this offer has been out less than a week.

The event is another 6 weeks away.

It’s too early to tell.

A no-code tutor started a YouTube channel and posted her numbers in Indie Hackers.

“This may sound like a small number”, she said.

9 months, 500 subscribers.

I saw her post and pointed out it’s actually mind-blowing.

It’s very hard to get those numbers from scratch.

And in such a short time frame!

You can check this against other YouTube channels that started 9 months ago - 99% have worst results.

We’re quick to dismiss things.

But patience, grit, and stubbornly improving the same thing are criminally under-rated.

It’s now 2025.

Pick something you know is valuable and grit it out.

By the end of the year you’ll be ahead of the 99% that didn’t.

I will be.

-Marshy

p.s. I'll be gritting with this newsletter - and share more goodies. The first of these is a crash course on cold email - reply to this email with “BULLDOG” and I’ll send it to you next week.

PO Box 378, Kangaroo Ground, Victoria 3097
Unsubscribe · Preferences

Early Growth School

Continuous tips, lessons, advice, and direction on growth for your early-stage startup by a growth marketing pro.

Read more from Early Growth School

the results are in. Last week I said I had a bit of spare time and wanted to test more video with shorts. This is what happened in the last week: Not bad right? Well actually in the scheme things - it’s unprecedented. Here’s the lifetime view count of my channel: The number’s pathetic. It’s never been a focus, and while I love presenting, have never been inclined to go hard at it because I have other things to do (like work for clients, raise my family, get sober and completely transform my...

short example

a tierlist for growth channels. Have you heard of tier lists? They’re very common in gaming world. Influencers like to put together lists ranking characters, items, or selections and opine on them. I had a quieter week as I work through a project exension and thought: Do you know what the world needs? A tierlist for growth channels for startups. But not just any tierlist, but grabbing and ranking the channels from the book Traction. Written in 2015 Here’s the channels from the book: •...

doing the work. “So you’ve done the work…” I met Mel Greblo through my work in the impact space. She does a number of amazing things, including founding Banksia Academy. A destination for helping women create their own employment pathways to help remove themselves and recover from domestic violence. She now leads Humans of Purpose. “Oh yes, I have.” If you read into the question literally - you can ask things like: what work? in what context? is it this or that? what kind of work? But if...